Chapter 2 - THE VOICE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN RECORDED
“Play it again,” Alessandro Romano ordered.
Rachel Bennett stood frozen beside the laundry room table, the threatening photograph of her father still glowing on her phone.
“Mr. Romano, my father—”
“I haven't forgotten your father.”
Alessandro turned toward his security chief, Marco Bellini.
“Send two men to the rehabilitation center. Nobody moves Mr. Bennett without his permission. And nobody representing the Whitmore family gets through that door.”
Marco nodded and stepped into the hallway.
Then Alessandro pressed PLAY.
Nicholas's familiar voice filled the room.
“Claire, if anything happens to me, give Alessandro the photograph. Edward knows what happened, but he isn't the one I'm afraid of.”
A door opened.
Then came the woman's voice.
“Nicholas, your brother can never find out what we did to Claire—because he's the reason she was brought into this family.”
The recording ended.
Alessandro stared at the phone.
Six years had passed since Nicholas died, but hearing his younger brother speak brought back memories Alessandro had spent years trying to bury.
Nicholas laughing over breakfast.
Nicholas borrowing his expensive watch without permission.
Nicholas promising that someday he would marry a woman who loved him for himself, not for the Romano name.
And now Nicholas was speaking about Claire Morgan.
A woman Alessandro believed had abandoned his family's employment shortly before his brother's death.
“Do you recognize the voice?” Rachel asked.
Alessandro hesitated.
“I recognize the accent. The way she says my brother's name.”
“Who is she?”
He looked toward the doorway.
“Someone who has been lying to me for six years.”
Upstairs, the dinner guests were collecting their coats.
Camille Whitmore stood beside the grand staircase, smiling while her uncle Edward spoke quietly with her.
Alessandro entered the foyer.
“Camille.”
Her smile brightened.
“Darling, finally. Mrs. Harrington was just telling me—”
“Come into my office.”
Edward stepped forward.
“Alessandro, surely whatever happened tonight can wait until tomorrow.”
“No.”
The single word silenced him.
Camille followed Alessandro into the study.
Rachel remained outside with the uniform carefully folded over her arm.
Alessandro closed the door.
“Who was Claire Morgan to Nicholas?”
Camille crossed her arms.
“An employee, obviously.”
“Try again.”
“Why are you interrogating me about a woman who disappeared before we were engaged?”
“Because you tried to destroy her uniform tonight.”
Camille looked away.
“I told you. It was filthy.”
Alessandro placed the photograph on his desk.
Camille's expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Her fingers simply stopped moving.
“Where did you get that?”
“Claire kept it inside her uniform.”
Camille stared at Nicholas's smiling face.
Then her eyes settled on the wedding ring.
“You don't understand what you're looking at,” she whispered.
“Then explain it.”
She gave a bitter laugh.
“Your brother wasn't the wonderful young man everyone remembers.”
Alessandro's jaw tightened.
“Be careful.”
“Why? Because he's dead? Because nobody is allowed to admit Nicholas made mistakes?”
“He was twenty-nine when he died.”
“And Claire Morgan was twenty-four.”
Alessandro leaned forward.
“What happened between them?”
Camille's expression softened unexpectedly.
“I wanted to tell you before our wedding.”
“Tell me what?”
“My family handled a terrible situation badly. I was twenty-five. My father was sick. My uncle controlled everything. I did what I was told.”
“What situation?”
Camille reached toward the photograph.
Alessandro covered it with his hand.
For the first time that evening, genuine anger crossed her face.
“You think you're protecting Claire? You don't even know why she came to your house.”
“Then tell me.”
Camille swallowed.
“She came because of you.”
Before Alessandro could respond, his phone vibrated with a message from Marco.
The rehabilitation center had confirmed that Rachel's father was safe.
But its administrator had also revealed something disturbing.
Someone had called earlier that evening requesting his immediate discharge.
The caller claimed to be Rachel Bennett.
Rachel had been working at the estate the entire time.
Alessandro showed Camille the message.
“Your uncle threatened an innocent man to keep an old uniform hidden.”
Camille shook her head.
“Edward doesn't always tell me what he's doing.”
“Then why are you defending him?”
“Because he's the only family I have left!”
Her voice cracked.
For a moment, Alessandro saw the frightened woman beneath the polished designer clothes.
Then she whispered something that changed the conversation.
“You want to know what Edward did to Claire? Ask your mother.”
Alessandro went still.
“My mother died eight years ago.”
“I know.”
Camille looked toward the photograph.
“But she left instructions.”
Alessandro remembered his mother, Elena Romano, as a strict woman who valued loyalty above everything.
She had died after a long illness, leaving behind a house full of traditions and an unfinished charitable foundation.
“What instructions?”
Camille pressed her lips together.
“I've already said too much.”
Alessandro opened the door.
“Marco will arrange transportation. You're staying somewhere else tonight.”
Camille stared at him.
“You're throwing me out?”
“I'm asking you to leave until I know whether you've been protecting someone who harmed Claire.”
“You promised to marry me.”
“And you promised never to lie about my family.”
Camille removed her engagement ring.
She placed it on the desk.
“You think Nicholas was protecting Claire,” she said quietly. “Maybe you should ask why he was trying to take her away.”
She walked out.
Rachel watched her cross the foyer without speaking.
A few minutes later, Alessandro returned to the laundry room.
Rachel stood beside the old trunk.
“Mr. Romano, there's something you should see.”
She lifted the wooden lid.
The inside was lined with faded blue fabric.
But beneath one corner, a brass hinge had been recently replaced.
“My father repaired furniture before his stroke,” Rachel explained. “He taught me that a new hinge on an old trunk usually means someone changed what the trunk was meant to hold.”
Alessandro examined the hinge.
Together they removed the small screws.
Beneath the lining lay a narrow compartment.
Inside were three objects.
A silver wristwatch.
A hospital visitor badge.
And a yellowed envelope.
Alessandro recognized the watch immediately.
It belonged to Nicholas.
He had given it to his younger brother for his twenty-fifth birthday.
The watch had disappeared after the fatal car accident.
But it was the hospital badge that made him turn pale.
It displayed a photograph of Claire Morgan.
Below her name were the words:
AUTHORIZED FAMILY VISITOR — ROMANO HOUSEHOLD.
Rachel frowned.
“Why would a housekeeper need that?”
Alessandro examined the date.
The badge had been issued eight years earlier.
Two years before Nicholas died.
And three months before Claire supposedly began working at the estate.
His hands grew cold.
Rachel opened the envelope.
Inside was a single handwritten letter.
The first sentence read:
Alessandro, if you're reading this, Nicholas finally failed to protect me.
Beneath it was a second sentence.
Your mother didn't hire me to clean your house.
She hired me because I knew what you did on October 14.
Alessandro looked up.
October 14.
Eight years earlier.
The night he had ordered a terrified nineteen-year-old woman sent away from a charity hospital after discovering she possessed a photograph connecting the Romano family to a fatal construction-site accident.
May you like
He had never learned her name.
Until now.
